I Have Seen The Future

I have seen the future

I met an old man

The future is bleak

I have seen the future

I met another old man

The future is wonderful

I have seen the future

I met a young man

The future is scary

I have seen the future

I met another young man

The future is incredibly bright and promising

I have seen the future

It is exactly like the past and the present

I Have Seen The Future

I have seen the future. It does not look too good.

I saw my friend, an old man of 90 today. He is recovering from a bout of illness in the hospital. He wants to come back home and continue to live, even if alone and struggling. He has some family living within a couple of hours of driving from here. They want him to move to an aged-care facility. He is resisting it and trying to stay in his own home for as long as he can. Just the battle of wills seems to give him sufficient motivation. He has not had a chance to fight for many things for many years now. In his younger days he had to fight, to survive, to provide and to provide plenty for people depending on him. He feels great, remembering those days. He often looks back and talks with pride about his ‘fights’ in life.

Now, for a long while all his needs of food, clothes, shelter and medical care are provided for him, but it does not make him happy. He is not ‘needed’. He is the one seen as in need. He needs challenges - his mind is sharp, his spirit is restless for and seeks a ‘fight’. This issue of going to the aged-care is his last big fight. He used to fight the elements, the weeds, the birds, insects, animals, the weather and others in his younger days. He felt something of value and a purpose in himself. Now they have taken that away. Now everyone is nice, defers to him, his views and opinions even if they totally disagree. They think he does not notice, but he does and feels terrible. No one wants to even have a good spirited argument with him. He can say things with biting wit and deep thoughts. He is thought of as cranky. He even likes to be proven wrong and can finish off a debate that he has ‘lost’ in good cheer. People try to be respectful to him, but do not want to engage with him enough to have a debate. He does not feel respected. It gets to him. He has not engaged too much socially. He was always a quiet, private person most of his life. It is not likely he can change now suddenly and make some friends now to be engaged with most of the days. He is comfortable and happy in the company of his garden plants, the birds, his tools and the occasional visitor including me. We tend to have good chats, but not often.

It’s like everyone is waiting for him to pass away with the least fuss. I can see this is a possible future for many of us. My friend has shown me the future. It is a bit ugly.

I have seen the future. It is beautiful.

I met another of my friends. He is almost 80. His health is failing slowly. He is still active, a bit too active. He is all over the place. He is gardening, making things, fixing stuff, he has a great circle of friends and family for whom he is always doing something. A lot of his friends, neighbours and family seem to be in touch with him every week. He is on email and is looking to get on Facebook. He volunteers with a local organisation. He has a mobile phone, struggles with the buttons a bit, but uses it. He writes to his grandchildren. He gets them to help him with his technology issues. One of them comes to him and shares the details of his engineering course. He reads up on the latest technology and seems to have a knack for putting things in layman terms. He is mostly smiling and laughing at everyone. It seems he does not have a care in the world, though he takes upon himself to care for others. He makes an effort and finds ways to make himself useful and sure enough, he has things to give away, even advice and knowledge, not just money.

I have seen the future. It is scary!

I have seen kids who do not get the basics. They are angry, suspicious and don’t seem to care about the world. They can be very intimidating, seem to respect no one, no one’s property or feelings. The things they talk about doing openly, sound scary. They are sullen and can see the hypocrisy of the grown-up world. They are cynical. They use words in a different way, new words even. Listening to their conversations, one cannot even understand what exactly they are saying or feeling. One can just infer that they are negative and resentful. They seem to take things for granted, feel entitled to the latest and greatest of everything on the market. They don’t seem to grasp the basic principle of working to earn and to buy. They seem ignorant of basic arithmetic, language and skills. What will they be good at when they grow up? Their attitude seems to be so scary, who will give them a job?

I have seen the future. It is hopeful and bright. I talk to some kids – teenagers and some younger ones.  It is incredibly hopeful and scary at the same time. The young are still innocent and pure to start with. They are not cynical yet. They are smart, quick, kind and easily understand fairness. All these qualities they are born with. It is only our input and ‘conditioning’ them by bringing them up, that is scary. While many oldies and middle-aged folk worry about the young having no respect for others or grown-ups as compared to themselves, I do not feel that. They do not display or show respect the way we expect or want them to. They will not be forced, coerced or physically threatened like we were as kids. They still show true respect in how they respond, look at you and talk with you in their own modern way. They may not comb their hair, dress like we would like them to. They still are idealistic and would, given a chance and no interference, do the right thing. They are more accepting of differences. They work very well together with people who are different from them. There is a wonderful acceptance of anyone with all their strengths and faults. They respond to kindness and love. They are clever and learn complex things quickly. They seem to be born to handle this complicated scientific world we have created for them, with ease. It may appear they don’t know the simple things we learned, they are born to take those for granted and move on to greater and more challenging things!

I have seen the future. Strangely enough, the future looks exactly like our past and the present!


Copyright  (c) Kannan Narayanamurthy 2012
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